sharklog71
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- Jan 30, 2023
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I'm a freshman bio major (doubling in a liberal arts major as well) in a top public university, and I'm just looking for advice on what to focus on in order to maximize my chances of getting into medical school by the end of my undergrad journey.
I'm planning to complete gen bio and bio lab, gen chem, biostats, psychology and sociology by the end of freshman year, along with my general english requirements and stuff from college. I'm also planning to take orgo, upper level bio, a&p, physics, and a semester of biochem next year, not sure what else I should finish before starting mcat studying. I've taken AP chem, bio, physics c so at least for the gen science courses I'm mostly cruising by for right now.
In terms of extracurriculars:
I'm taking an EMT course right now to get certified by ~January/February, and hopefully I'll start actually working by the start of next year if possible. Not sure if I'll work this summer or try to do some sort of research program instead.
I'm volunteering weekly at a local hospital, and I'm probably going to pick up another volunteering shift at a local clinic.
I have shadowing set up soon and aim to have ~50 hours by the end of this semester. I have ~20 hours from the summer just from a single exchange with a doctor, and ~100 from high school which I don't think I can keep.
I'm attempting to get into a wet-lab at my university, will find out in a couple weeks if I'm in, and if so I plan to stay in it till the end of college hopefully. I'm also doing remote clinical research at a lab in a t20 med school, working on a couple systematic reviews with medical students at my local med school, and doing clinical research for a vascular surgery research group based in California. I've also done wet lab research over the summer at Hopkins, and some temporary internships at UTSW, but both of those were during high school so I won't keep them on my resume.
I'm aiming to join a pre-health society on campus, as well as some other generally fun clubs and maybe some consulting organizations to get involved in business, purely out of interest. I'm also establishing my own chapter of a national organization I'm a part of, which'll hopefully take flight in a couple months.
Outside of medicine, I do policy advocacy for 2 organizations, both extremely reputable and have a presence nationwide. Getting a conference presentation at a public health conference from one of them in the coming months, so they are definetly meritable enough to hopefully continue until med school applications, I've been in them since high school but they have people working ranging from hs to graduate.
I'm not sure if I should pursue any other form of clinical experience, at the moment I'm just doing volunteering, and I'm hoping EMT will suffice for clinical stuff, but I probably won't start working till next summer/next year at the earliest, and am thinking of trying to reach out to local clinics and work as an assistant, is that a good/bad idea?
I feel like my ideal amcas ec list would end up being 2-3 research activities (i quite like research), EMT, clinical volunteering, non clinical volunteering, shadowing 2 advocacy/policy related activities, 1-2 organizations on campus, and 1-2 hobbies.
Also, is it worth doing research in the summer, or racking up clinical hours. I like research, a lot, so I was focusing on research programs and such, but balancing EMT with school seems like it would lead to very few hours, and so I'm not sure whether I should work EMT over the summer instead.
Also, whats a proper timeline for courses to complete before studying for the MCAT. I'm planning to take it with the intent of graduating in 4 years and applying right away, no gap year in mind at the moment, so I'd love any advice surrounding that.
All in all I'm just looking for advice, sometimes I feel like I can't do much more this early, yet I look around and feel like people are so much more busy than I am. Maybe because I haven't started in a wet-lab yet and my classes haven't ramped up in difficulty that I'm left with this much time, but in general I'm just looking for advice to maximize my freshman year so I don't have any regrets when applying to med school.
I'm planning to complete gen bio and bio lab, gen chem, biostats, psychology and sociology by the end of freshman year, along with my general english requirements and stuff from college. I'm also planning to take orgo, upper level bio, a&p, physics, and a semester of biochem next year, not sure what else I should finish before starting mcat studying. I've taken AP chem, bio, physics c so at least for the gen science courses I'm mostly cruising by for right now.
In terms of extracurriculars:
I'm taking an EMT course right now to get certified by ~January/February, and hopefully I'll start actually working by the start of next year if possible. Not sure if I'll work this summer or try to do some sort of research program instead.
I'm volunteering weekly at a local hospital, and I'm probably going to pick up another volunteering shift at a local clinic.
I have shadowing set up soon and aim to have ~50 hours by the end of this semester. I have ~20 hours from the summer just from a single exchange with a doctor, and ~100 from high school which I don't think I can keep.
I'm attempting to get into a wet-lab at my university, will find out in a couple weeks if I'm in, and if so I plan to stay in it till the end of college hopefully. I'm also doing remote clinical research at a lab in a t20 med school, working on a couple systematic reviews with medical students at my local med school, and doing clinical research for a vascular surgery research group based in California. I've also done wet lab research over the summer at Hopkins, and some temporary internships at UTSW, but both of those were during high school so I won't keep them on my resume.
I'm aiming to join a pre-health society on campus, as well as some other generally fun clubs and maybe some consulting organizations to get involved in business, purely out of interest. I'm also establishing my own chapter of a national organization I'm a part of, which'll hopefully take flight in a couple months.
Outside of medicine, I do policy advocacy for 2 organizations, both extremely reputable and have a presence nationwide. Getting a conference presentation at a public health conference from one of them in the coming months, so they are definetly meritable enough to hopefully continue until med school applications, I've been in them since high school but they have people working ranging from hs to graduate.
I'm not sure if I should pursue any other form of clinical experience, at the moment I'm just doing volunteering, and I'm hoping EMT will suffice for clinical stuff, but I probably won't start working till next summer/next year at the earliest, and am thinking of trying to reach out to local clinics and work as an assistant, is that a good/bad idea?
I feel like my ideal amcas ec list would end up being 2-3 research activities (i quite like research), EMT, clinical volunteering, non clinical volunteering, shadowing 2 advocacy/policy related activities, 1-2 organizations on campus, and 1-2 hobbies.
Also, is it worth doing research in the summer, or racking up clinical hours. I like research, a lot, so I was focusing on research programs and such, but balancing EMT with school seems like it would lead to very few hours, and so I'm not sure whether I should work EMT over the summer instead.
Also, whats a proper timeline for courses to complete before studying for the MCAT. I'm planning to take it with the intent of graduating in 4 years and applying right away, no gap year in mind at the moment, so I'd love any advice surrounding that.
All in all I'm just looking for advice, sometimes I feel like I can't do much more this early, yet I look around and feel like people are so much more busy than I am. Maybe because I haven't started in a wet-lab yet and my classes haven't ramped up in difficulty that I'm left with this much time, but in general I'm just looking for advice to maximize my freshman year so I don't have any regrets when applying to med school.